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Can you give a bit more detail about the sealing? Did you dilute the primer?, how many layers?, did you sand it down in between or anything?

Concerning the sealing, I diluted the Gesso with about 20% tap water in order to get a smooth finish. Undiluted Gesso causes a grainy finish, which you probably don't want.
Putting on about 4 to 5 thin layers with fine sanding (Grade 400) in between each layer will suffice.

Where needed I also used light weight filler to smoothen/straighten the surface; before sealing that is.

I know, I know....it has been toooo long since the last update for sure :o. And I have to apologise to all of you. I'm sooo sorry I haven't been able to update this thread, because of the simple fact I haven't had the time to do any work on my scratch build.
Ever since the last update I went on mission for the office I work for (back and forth between Germany, Austria and Holland), got a promotion, took care of some things around the house, help my mom with her house being refurbished, etc. Also the family life has been taking up most of my spare time. Some weeks were also quite tropical down here, so we had to enjoy that too.

But I promise, when the time is right (certainly before the end of 2008!!!) I will dedicate more time to continuing finishing my helmet building method. I didn't plan on deserting this thread or you guys. I just was busy the last couple of months. So please keep faith, for AntMan will return!

Well, here it is. A very small update for the building of this cardboard helmet. It's not much but at least gives you something to fiddle with as it involves quite some intricate detail and skill (mostly patience and a sharp knife actually).

First I started applying filler to the cheeks and helmet dome. Keeping the filler sculpting knife moist helps smoothing the filler surface a lot:

I tried to get the filler as smooth onto the dome and cheeks as possible, so the sanding part will be a lot easier.
But before sanding, this should be left to dry completely for at least 24 hours. So that gave me some time to focus on preparing the keyhole area.

I drew out the pattern from the keyhole frame template onto some cardboard and left some extra trim around the edges (for support when glueing inside the bucket).

Also, I glued the keyhole template itself to a piece of cardboard:

Then it was simply cutting the cardboard layer by layer. I did this very carefully because the resulting keyhole piece is very delicate:

Some finer detail:

One keyhole fully cut:

And presto, the entire vent:

It doesn't fit into the frame yet as you can see. That's because it needs to be bent into a curved shape.

So after a light spray with tap water, the bending resulted in this shape:

It is worth stressing that you should not moisten the cardboard too much as this will result in the cardboard losing its composure. Especially the very thin edges will break easily if you use too much spray water.

I kept the paper side (still glued to the cardboard) on the inside of the keyhole:

Then I just applied some white glue to the inside at these places:

In this picture you can see that the top of the keyhole frame also has a slight curve outward:

The last two bits are also cut from the glued-on template:

Also glued in place this is the result (notice that for this one I forgot the extra trim):

But some spare cardboard glued to the long edges also does the trick:

The edges of the keyhole connecting to the frame still need to be filled up to get a seamless piece.

That's it for now. And since I will be enjoying 8 days of holiday in the Spanish sun I won't be checking TDH until I get back.

At last. Worth the long waiting. Your work is amazing Antman! It almost,just almost makes me regret that I won Ronin's lid just a while ago... Still, I have a metal pot under way... If I can make something out of it before it rusts away..
And, yes, Stickied this should be! Definately!
-Ville

I've just read this thread from start to now. WOW! Your skill is superb! It's been great to see this come together, having just completed my card based helmet build. I've enjoyed reading through and seeing how you did yours and compare it to my own build.

Agreed. This is invaluable to new members or even those who have never built their own lid before. I remember when I first saw the WOW templates that they scared the c#*p out of me as I didn't know where to begin.

AntMan, I gotta tell ya....your step-by-step is great! I am building two scratch-builds at the same time using your tutorial and WOF templates. One for my 7 year old and one for my 3 year old. I had to scale the templates down a bit and I think I got the wrong thickness of matte board (here in the US). But I think it's "thin-ness" will be good for weight reasons and simply having to cut smaller pieces and shaping them.

Ok First i have to say you are a god among men i love the4 templates im printing them out as i type and as soon as i possibly can ima try my own scratch built and if you dont mind im going to see what i can do about putting this all together into a how to packet for you to give out again only if you dont mind me doing it.

Thanks xbrotherx! Can we see some pics of your progress? You've got two lucky kids!

null13 said:

....try my own scratch built .... putting this all together into a how to packet ... if you dont mind me doing it.

Brad
To be Grunt/Mando

Hey Brad! No problemo dude. In my view that's what this forum is all about. Sharing information, inspiring and helping each other whenever possible. Any suggestions or tips are very welcome! Can't wait to see your progress.

And @Gypsyboy: I am still puzzled myself how I did the pic with the camera in it.....

Thanks for all you positive comments so far. Right now I am working on the RF stalk and topper and will be posting the progress soon (I hope).